Posts Tagged librarians

It’s remarkable how much of an impact a great librarian can have on the teaching and learning that happens in a school. I have no idea who the librarian was at the high school I went to, and it was a very good high school. I don’t know if that person worked behind the scenes with my teachers, if the roles of librarians have changed, or if I just happen to be especially lucky right now to have one who works so closely with us and provides so much practical support.

At the beginning of the school year, I bring all my students down to our library to give them a chance to browse for a book for SSR (sustained silent reading). Our librarian, Kristin McKeown, has a library classroom stocked with her own “staff picks” of the library’s most appealing (and provocative) books, arranged into a few broad categories. She then conducts a short mini-lesson during which she generates a ton of student interest and buy-in for independent reading.

But it’s the research project that prompted this post right now. All 9th grade teachers in my department embark on a collaboratively planned research assignment around now, and Kristin is instrumental in it. I won’t go into the instruction she provides for students when they’re down in the library, but I just wanted to share something new she has done this year: a series of Jing videos outlining the many steps of the research process that she has posted on the library’s website.

She used Jing to make the videos (and Inspiration for the drawing of the thinking maps – a district-wide focus for us this year). I haven’t used that myself yet, but she says it’s very easy, and so does Nik Peachy. Due to the number of anticipated views, she had to pay a monthly fee to Screencast to host them. (Youtube is free, of course, but, as Kristin put it, “we have obvious access issues there.”)

I’m so excited that these videos are there for my students. One of the most surefire headaches for both students and teachers when it comes to these projects is when a student is absent for one of the library research days. This has always been one of those problems that seems insurmountably complicated. And it always happens, of course. And to many, many students. Every year. And still, each time a student returns to class and asks “What’d I miss?” I end up scratching my head in futility, wondering how I’m possibly ever going to catch them up.

Some analogies:

I know that my morning commute always take me around 35 minutes to get to work, and I know where the typical slowdowns are. But I still feel surprised and frustrated when I get to them.

Or when there’s an ongoing construction project that I should have anticipated, but when I get to it, the detour still throws me for a loop.

Or when I’m surprised by how many calories are in a milkshake or a cheeseburger.

Anyway, problem solved.

Go to this site, watch the videos. Come see me if you have any questions. Done.

Then there are the students who are so excited that they are in the library instead of in the classroom, sitting next to a friend instead of a non-friend, and in front of a computer instead of a row of desks, that there’s no way they’ll be able to pay attention to the live instruction.

And, of course, there are all those students with different learning needs for whom a video that they can stop and start at their leisure will allow them to go at a pace that ensures they can more fully understand all the steps in the process.

These are all points that are argued in the flipped classroom debate, but in this context it seems like a no-brainer. We’re still doing class time the way we’ve always done it, but if you missed it, in any sense of the word “missed,” here it is again, all spelled out for you.

Why don’t we do this for kids all the time? Because we don’t all have great librarians.